Free Sarah's Baby by Margaret Way

her. The remark about her and her mother never hiding what was theirs. The terrible reality was that her mother had given in to Ruth McQueen’s demands for adoption, persuaded it was for the best. An absolutely harrowing decision, and it had returned to plague her. Her mother had gone into a kind of inconsolable bereavement. As she had herself. Except that she’d never signed the adoption papers, fighting it to the end.
    Once that awful woman, the midwife, put the baby on her breast, there was no way she was ever going to part with her. A profound spiritual and psychological connection had taken place. Woozy, not exactly sure of her surroundings, she’d still protested, telling Ruth McQueen in the absence of her mother that she was going to keep her child.
    â€œI’m keeping her, no matter what!” she’d cried, finally finding the decision so easy. “I haven’t signed your damned forms. I know I said I would, but now I’m not able to. This is my child. Mum and I will move away. We won’t bother you, but you’ll never take her from me.”
    Words that must have brought down the wrath of God, for her child had been taken from her. She’d never seen her again, though she’d demanded in hysterics that she be allowed to kiss the lifeless little body.
    She’d been given a sedative. And afterward she’d fallen into a deep depression, thinking she could still hear and see her tiny Rose.
    God knows what had brought her back from the brink. Some inner strength she didn’t know she had. Or just the resilience of sheer youth.
    â€œWhat you have to do now, my girl, is put your mistakein the past,” Ruth McQueen had told her, black eyes mesmeric. “You’re not the first and you won’t be the last. Get on with your life. It may seem hard now, but you’ll survive. My grandson will, too. You’ll realize in time that you’ve done the right thing by not telling him. Especially now that the child has died. Make no bones about it, he would blame you. For keeping him in the dark about your situation and for losing the baby. I know my grandson. Do what you’re told and you’ll have me as a friend.” There was a short pause. “Do you really want me as an enemy?”
    Ruth McQueen. How did you protect yourself from a woman like that? How did you protect your mother? So the woman she hated gave both of them a helping hand. With McQueen money, along with her job working nights, Sarah had become Dr. Sarah Dempsey. Battling her aversion to taking McQueen money, she came to reason that they owed her. After all, Kyall had been involved in making their baby.
    The going had been tough, but she’d made it.
    Until now. Her mother’s death was a powerful turning point.
    It was midnight before she went to bed, sleeping with her mother’s pink cotton robe wrapped around her. A robe whose front was soon soaked in tears. Having used up all her strength, Sarah fell into an exhausted sleep.
    Â 
    S HE RETURNED Joe’s four-wheel-drive first thing in the morning, parking it on the hospital grounds, then walking into the building to speak to the man himself. Looking around, she had to applaud what she saw. McQueen money had provided this hospital for the town. No expense had been spared in its construction, its neat gardens, its medical equipment, its cheerful interior.
    She found Sister Bradley at the nurses’ station and exchanged a few words before moving down the corridor to Joe’s office. Joe had said he particularly wanted to speak to her. What about? Word in the town for more years than she could remember was that Joe had been Ruth McQueen’s lover. A rumor Sarah had found so overwhelming she’d tried to discount it. She liked and respected Joe. Everyone did. He was a fine, caring doctor, devoted to his patients and the well-being of the town. Joe had brought her into the world. It was impossible to dislike or distrust